Maple Pecan Cookie Crumble
A maple and pecan cookie dough baked in a pot over coals, or eaten as crumble.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 2.8 oz
- cal / oz
- 114
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 12, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 60 ml cold
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Foil packet
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Bread flour | 2 1/2 cups | the extra gluten keeps it chewy, not sandy |
|---|---|---|
| Baking soda | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 3/4 tsp | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Ground nutmeg | 1/2 tsp | |
| Light brown sugar | 1 cup, packed | |
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp | stands in for one large egg, plus 3 tbsp water |
| Shortening or ghee | 1/2 cup | replaces butter; both hold at camp temperatures |
| Pure maple syrup | 1/2 cup | a small screw-top bottle, doubled-bagged |
| Chopped pecans | 1 1/2 cups |
Method
- Build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady heat, not flame.
- In the pot, stir the fat into the brown sugar until there are no dry pockets. Add the maple syrup and the egg powder mixed with 3 tbsp cold water.
- Add the premixed dry bag a third at a time. Stop mixing the moment the flour disappears. Fold in the pecans.
- Line the dutch oven with foil and drop the dough in as 12 flattened lumps, or press the whole batch into one slab.
- Lid on. Set the oven on a bed of coals with a shovelful more on the lid. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, checking at 12.
- Pull it when the edges go light tan and the centers still look wet. It firms up as it cools. Lift the foil out and let it sit ten minutes.
Cookies are a bad trail food and a good camp food. This one moves to the fire by swapping two things: butter becomes shortening or ghee, which does not need a cooler, and the fresh egg becomes powdered egg plus water. Nothing else changes, because bread flour, brown sugar, maple syrup, and pecans are all already shelf-stable.
The bread flour is not a substitution to undo. Its higher protein gives the dough enough structure to survive uneven coal heat without collapsing into grease. Coal baking runs hotter on the bottom than the top, so put more coals on the lid than under the oven, and pull the pot early. Underbaked centers set as they cool; overbaked ones do not come back.
Packing
Flour, soda, salt, spices, brown sugar, and egg powder go in one gallon bag at home, shaken together. Pecans in a second bag so they do not grind themselves to dust. Fat and syrup in leakproof bottles inside a third bag.
Variations
- No dutch oven: press the dough into a foil packet and set it on a grill grate over low coals, 12 minutes, rotating once.
- Skip the shaping entirely and cook the dough as a single skillet slab, then break it up and eat it with a spoon.
- Dried apple, chopped small, replaces half the pecans if someone in camp cannot eat nuts.
https://mealswithmaria.site/maple-pecan-cookies